


All's Fair

by AugustPendragon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abduction, Anal Sex, Animal Instincts, Animals, Asphyxiation, Barbed Penis, Blindness, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bonding, Caretaking, Catboys & Catgirls, Character Development, Developing Relationship, Dogboys & Doggirls, Dogs, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Gloves, Guns, Hand Jobs, Healing, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Knotting, Language Barrier, Licking, M/M, Military, Mountains, Oral Knotting, Original Universe, Past Abuse, Prisoner of War, Protectiveness, Rape, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Sacrifice, Size Difference, Soldiers, Tattoos, Teaching, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustPendragon/pseuds/AugustPendragon
Summary: What chance did any Fauch stand against a Hund?The average Fauch stood four foot tall, wanted nothing to do with any other Fauch unless they were fucking, and found running from crisis to be the best solution.The Hund averaged six foot and twice their weight, worked in packs, and found the hunt more pleasurable than sex.They were going to die. They were all going to die.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is finished! Will be uploaded in parts as I edit & clean.
> 
> For my Drift readers, sorry, I'm super lame and still not finished, so temp hiatus again!

The flies were heavy in the air.

Like a shroud they settled thickly on the bodies, humming.

One descended on his cheek. He shuddered. The fly continued undeterred towards his eye until he slapped it away.  
“THIS is what happens,” his officer roared, “to no-good shit-faced deserters!”  
The other soldiers around him shuffled wretchedly in the dust. Not a one of them hadn’t wanted to run. The two bastards who had were now hung from poles by their tails, riddled with bullet holes and clustered insects.  
“And some of you might think, he won’t catch me! He’d never catch me! And maybe you’re right. But there’s worse than me coming, boys! The Hund are coming! And if you break rank and let them through, you’ll wish mighty that you died as pretty a death as those fucks up on those poles.”

That was their motivational for the evening. They took their meal in silence and then it was back to lining up behind barricades, hugging their guns, waiting for it to end.  
Prince stared blankly at a weapon he’d never used. This was the end game. His people had lost every soldier of any merit, and he and the other whimpering, filthy young souls hunched beside him were all that was left.  
All that was left to die. What chance did any Fauch stand against a Hund?  
The average Fauch stood four foot tall, wanted nothing to do with any other Fauch unless they were fucking, and found running from crisis to be the best solution.  
The Hund averaged six foot and twice their weight, worked in packs, and found the hunt more pleasurable than sex.  
They were going to die. They were all going to die. Running and getting shot for desertion would have been an easier death than Hund. Or aiming one’s gun at oneself.  
But Prince did none of these things, and only huddled more miserably into his hole.  
He was Fauch, and they were cowards, after all.

Was it exhaustion that drove him to sleep? Malnutrition? Despair? One way or another he’d fallen asleep, and he woke to the scream of grenades and the howls of hell.

The captain’s motivational had been for naught. His fellow soldiers fled and he fled too. Where—anywhere, AWAY, from the laughter and the shadows and the smoke—  
Bursts of fire. Eruptions of smog. Shadows that he couldn’t tell were Fauch or Hund or tree. He ran from them all, gun dropping from numb hands, barreling through the undergrowth—  
Into something solid. He looked up to see a Hund smiling, mouth filled with teeth.  
A face that distorted in pain and a flash of red as a knife impaled into its neck.  
The Hund smashed forward from the weight of the Fauch on its back. A much older man than Prince’s compatriots, dark haired and snarling.  
“Run! Run, you stupid fuck!”  
Prince nodded, but his legs didn’t move. His savior pulled his blade loose and surged off in another direction. There was no safety here. He had to run. He had to...  
A whistle and a burst of light—and gas. Gas that burned his eyes and his face and his EYES and he couldn’t see, he couldn’t SEE—  
Prince scrambled up and ran on sound alone. He ran and ran and ran as his people screamed all around him and the Hunds bellowed triumph into the night.  
He ran—  
Agony; fire-pain all over him, thorns in his skin. Not thorns. Barbed wire. Wire they had placed for protection, now a snare.  
He screamed and he struggled and every movement twisted iron deeper into his skin. And still he tried to run, because it was what Fauch did. He tried and tried and tried and drove the wire deeper in until pain and smoke overcame him and everything went dark.

It hurt...

It hurt...

Prince drifted in and out of fever dreams. There was no light to mark his waking, just different depths of pain. But it was different from before.  
It was sore... and it stung... but it was a dulling pain. When his body twitched the only restraint he felt was at his wrists. His body was free of wire.  
Someone tilted his head up and offered something wet to his lips. He drank and the pain dulled further and he drifted again.

It hurt... less than before.

He was lucid now. His ears twitched to every sound. Soft breathing beside him, and a deeper, steadier breathing that came and went. It felt like he was atop blankets. Someone came and scrubbed his useless eyes with—something—every so often, and pressed bread and soup and tea to his lips.  
With every day his aches eased and traces of light began to fill his vision. He was healing, but where—at who’s hand—he hadn’t the faintest. Fauch were not known for their PITY. Who had deigned to work him loose of the barbs and save him? He was nothing...  
Helpless, sightless, he felt a kitten again. Whoever was tending him even had to bathe him, soothing away his sweat with damp cloth. This process was brief and utterly non intimate, ignoring the most private parts of him, but one day...  
The hand cleaning him lingered on his waist. Prince had no idea who held him. He could guess he was bound at the wrists. What he didn’t know and what he did told him not to trust this touch.  
But it had brought him food and soothed his pain. And it had been so long since he was touched.  
Was it a sound he made? Some expression? Whatever it was, whoever was tending him proceeded to slip his pants down to his ankles.  
Prince couldn’t see, but he could FEEL the eyes, and his skin burned. Not entirely with shame.  
A finger traced his cock. Prince gasped and the sharps on his prick twitched. Whoever was touching him cursed and withdrew.

And returned, gloved, to continue his work. It had been a still longer time since he’d been shown kindness like THIS. Prince keened, toes knitting in the bedding, and thrust into a hand he could not see.  
Orgasm came quickly. He was dimly aware of the cloth cleaning him and his clothes being fixed up. He slept.

The next day, for the first time in a month, he saw.  
He was on a bed, in what looked like a simple, small cabin made of wood. Another Fauch was asleep on the far side, wrists bound with scraps of cloth. He looked quite like himself—blonde, pale, young.  
The door opened. Prince’s head turned and he stiffened.

A man nearly twice his size, white hair and upright ears, a tail raised smartly behind him.  
A Hund.  
His savior was a HUND.

The behemoth paused in the doorway, looking at him. Prince squeezed his newly opened eyes shut and shrunk trembling against the bed. The floor creaked as the Hund drew closer.  
A huge hand cradled his face.  
“Eyes.”  
Thickly accented, but understandable. Prince shuddered.  
“Eyes!”  
Snarled this time. Prince’s opened, wide and afraid.  
“Yes. Good.”  
The Hund looked at him a moment longer before stepping back. The cabin was longer than it was wide, barely accommodating the man. Still he managed, moving to the far side and holding up three fingers.  
“Number.”  
“Th... three.”  
“Good. Yes.”  
The Hund nodded and approached again. Prince once more shrunk back but did not close his eyes.  
There was so much to ask. Why has he saved them? Was he going to—  
He was probably going to eat them, wasn’t he? Why else?  
But then, why heal his eyes?  
Prince was too faint to ask. The Hund watched him a moment longer before turning and fussing over a pot on a simple stove. More soup was offered soon after. Rabbit. Prince ate it and was grateful. When he and the other Fauch and the Hund himself had eaten, the giant stepped back, settled to the floor, and closed his eyes as if to sleep.  
“W-Why?”  
Prince regretted the squeak as soon as it emerged, flinching against the bed.  
The Hund’s ear twitched.  
He didn’t answer.

The other Fauch opened his eyes the next day. He handled the view a little less well, hissing and spitting. The Hund tended him all the same.  
Whatever his purpose was, killing them didn’t seem to be in his immediate plans. And so Prince watched him, and learned.  
Not that there was much to learn, from where he was. The man took care of them and left, returned with fish or fowl or rabbit, repeated. The bursts of pine scent and sun from beyond the door seemed similar to where they’d been stationed. Maybe they weren’t far. What had happened to everyone else?  
And where was the rest of this Hund’s pack? Solitary Hunds were unheard of, and yet no other ever appeared. His questions about this and everything else went unanswered, and while it was hard to say, Prince felt it was more willful dismissal than simple lack of understanding.  
Only one thing got an answer.  
“My name is Prince. What’s yours?”  
Again those ears raised. Prince was half asleep, expecting no answer, when one came.

“Raphael.”


	2. Chapter 2

His fellow Fauch was slightly more talkative, at least when they were alone. His name was Alphonse. Prince dimly remembered seeing him once or twice in the haze that had been his brief military career. Like Prince, he’d been dazed by gas and run into the wire. Unlike Prince, he had no faith in the Hund and thought only of escape.  
As for Prince, well...

It had been a long few years since he’d last woken every day to not fearing death. It reminded him of the sentiment early in the war.  
“Is it a problem if the Hunds win?”  
Fauch were violent and petty and cruel. The Hund had conquered other societies and made them better. Prince had almost wished, in the deepest recess of his heart, that they would do the same for them.  
But—it had NOT been like that. The Hund had crushed them and then chosen to continue the slaughter rather than rebuild. Why, he couldn’t say—but it had destroyed all his hopes of a future.

Now, though...  
It was faint, distant.  
But Prince could almost imagine a future.

What KIND of future, he had no idea—but he could at least believe he’d live through the year. After a few more days his vision was fully clear, the last of his cuts healed over.  
That was the first time Raphael loosed his bonds, and took him outside.

Prince was very stiff as he followed the Hund out. Part of him wanted to stay affixed to the bed that had become such a source of comfort. But another part of him yearned for more, and so he went.  
As he’d imagined, they were in a forest very like the one they’d fought in. Probably the same. They were on the upper edge of a mountain, looking down across lush valley and glints of river. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought war had never touched the place.  
Prince turned and regarded his new home. It was a simple construct through and through, half built into a slope of dirt and covered with loose stone and pleated vine. Easy for the eye to overlook, and probably intended that way.  
When Prince turned at last back to Raphael, the man grunted.  
“Don’t run.”  
Prince nodded and followed quietly after.

No words were spoken, but it seemed the Hund was giving him an impromptu tour. The man’s living was simple, but sufficient. An apple orchard hidden behind thickets. A garden of vegetables that burst up behind a barrier of nettles. A natural pool filled with fish. A simple homemade distillery.  
It was this last that Raphael stopped at, sitting. He drew a mug of moonshine and offered some to Prince. The Fauch declined and the Hund drank it all himself.  
Why was this Hund alone? It looked like he’d been here for at least a year. Why? Why live alone in the mountains, picking up half dead Fauch and nursing them back to life?  
Why... touch a Fauch, gently?  
“Why?”  
A simple question, broad in scope. Again Raphael’s ears twitched. He drew another drink and said nothing.  
“Why?” Prince pressed again, softer.  
A cricket trilled off in the green. The wind kicked golden curls of hair against Prince’s face.  
Maybe he didn’t need to know. He closed his eyes and laid back against the earth, enjoying the sun, enjoying the still.  
“War...”  
A voice above him. Prince opened his eyes to Raphael, hands resting on each side of Prince’s head.  
“Stupid.”  
And then, warm lips on his.  
Prince could hear his own heart.  
Why?  
Why?  
This was... his natural enemy...  
And yet he closed his eyes and answered that kiss. A trill of warmth started in his breast and swept downwards.  
Raphael broke the kiss after what seemed an age, grunted.  
“Pretty.”  
Prince could only lay there dazzled, panting. Strong Hund hands unbuttoned his shirt, and strong Hund lips kissed his chest.  
“Pretty little cat.”  
Prince became a LITTLE more aware when his pants were unbuttoned. A-Ah! Now what? The man didn’t have gloves here... due to the nature of their sexes, male Fauch normally masturbated themselves with rags and cushions, but they had none of those here, either.  
Raphael also seemed to be evaluating this, frowning. Prince felt like an awful fool. He’d actually reached for the hem of his pants to pull them up again when Raphael simply leaned forward, rubbing a clothed knee firmly into his groin.  
A mew escaped Prince, unasked for. He arced into that touch, rubbing himself silly, his spines too small to damage the tightly made stitching.  
Raphael let him go on like this a while before pulling back. Prince blinked out of his haze just in time to see the Hund open his trousers.  
OH.  
It was—enormous, first and foremost, larger than any he had ever seen.   
It was also very... different in shape. A tapered head. A thickening at the base—that at least he had heard rumored. But, strangest of all—  
It was smooth. Save for the trace of veins there was no interruption on that livid flesh. He had never seen a cock without spines before.  
The Hund moved suddenly forward, and pressed the monstrosity to his lips. Prince knew this! His tongue ran less-than-timid circles around the tip.  
What he was NOT prepared for, something no Fauch would willingly do, was when half the entirety of it was thrust suddenly into his soft mouth.  
Prince gagged and more than that panicked, jerking back. The spines would—!  
Wait. There WERE none. Still...  
Raphael groaned in disappointment. Only to start when Prince abruptly lunged forward, taking as much of him in as he could.  
He had no idea what he was doing, but he mouthed boldly at him all the same. Raphael seemed pleased; he tossed his head back and gave a jaunty little howl, tail switching behind him.  
Prince’s adventure with the taste of him was, however, fairly brief; Raphael soon nudged him off and to all fours on the ground, propping up his knees and going straight for his—  
Prince’s startled mewl was all the louder this time. The Hund’s tongue was strong, long, and invasive, etching into the deepest crooks of him, lighting every fire along the way. Prince’s cries took on new urgency, feeble claws catching at the dirt.  
Inside, some saner part of Prince screamed. IT knew was coming next, and what it likely entailed.  
But... did it matter? His body was used to pain. A few of his first lovers had been kind enough to wear sheaths, but since the war the men he’d known had insisted on the natural way. Compared to the rake of spines, pain due simply to size sounded rather like an upgrade.  
Yet even so...  
He whimpered as Raphael tucked his legs up over his shoulders, that massive shaft bumping at his hole. The Hund went still, peering at him.  
“I won’t hurt you.”  
He began to press in. Prince cried out and twitched. The Hund gave a heavy sigh and pulled himself back. A moment later, rather than his sex, he eased in a finger.  
THAT felt nice. Prince’s cries resumed for all the right reasons, cock twitching between his thighs. Raphael mumbled approvingly and added a second, Prince keening, his tail whipping in a frenzy beside him.  
It took a little longer before Raphael could introduce a third. This was Prince’s limit, in both size and pleasure, but it was enough. He could take him.  
Raphael withdrew his wondrous hands, licked him again, and pressed in.  
Little by little. Prince could feel every inch. Raphael pierced as deep as the largest lover Prince had ever taken and then went several inches more. When it ended at last it was against a knot of flesh, sealed close against his skin.  
It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.  
Raphael’s fingers intertwined with his own and he leaned forward, kissing him again as he began to rock. Prince cried out and squirmed, something hot twisting up inside him.  
This was better than any sex he’d ever known.  
And so GENTLE. Prince had been fucked more bloody than necessary many times, but every stroke of the Hund’s cock was controlled and smooth. Prince could feel that manhood pulsing. And he could feel, too, the rumble deep in Raphael’s chest, the howl that yearned to be born.  
Prince’s own body answered the call. A soft and rhythmic purr, shivering from his lungs. It only grew when he realized that he could see the imprint of the Hund’s shaft beneath his skin with every thrust.  
Raphael’s pace never advanced beyond what Prince would have considered tender, but it DID increase, and the pace of it excited every nerve his body cared to possess. The little Fauch trilled, body flexing, arms wrapping around his lover’s broad shoulders.  
Raphael, while pleased, was less oblivious. His eyebrows knitted together in thought, and just when Prince thought the man would push deeper, he began to withdraw.  
“W-Wait!”  
Prince’s nails caught on his skin, too weak to damage.  
The rumors he’d heard—that which he had dared to fantasize about—  
“K-Knot me.”  
Raphael blinked. And then offered a truly roguish grin.  
Then he was pressing back—ALL of him, deeper than before, that THICKNESS—  
Prince mewed as he came, little cock pulsing glaze, but Raphael threw back his head and howled.

When Prince came back, Raphael was still inside him, and larger than before. Prince let himself be held and made no attempt to quiet his purrs.  
Perhaps five minutes passed before Raphael went soft and left him. He didn’t say another word, but as they returned to the cabin with the setting sun, he didn’t bind him again, either.  
Alphonse appeared astounded that he was still alive. The next day, when Raphael left to hunt, he told Prince he thought he’d heard his dying cries.  
Flustered and looking anywhere else, Prince told him the reality. Alphonse looked hardly comforted.


	3. Chapter 3

It soon became apparent that the encounter would not be a once time thing. Raphael began to fuck him daily—

No. That was unkind. THEY began to fuck daily; it was give and take, mutual pleasure for both.

It was not the same for Alphonse. Raphael took him out one day, same as Prince, but came back soon glowering with a sobbing Alphonse in his arms. He had NOT touched him, but he had wanted to.  
Prince tried anxiously to reroute the Hund’s desires and was mostly successful. Their liaisons, however, came closer and closer to the cabin, until at last Raphael was fucking him bent against the bed a foot from Alphonse.  
It wasn’t Prince’s first time being watched, even if the circumstance was different. He came anyway.  
Alphonse, again, looked hardly convinced.  
And it seemed their master had only so much mercy.  
“Don’t f-fight it! It doesn’t hurt,” Prince cried, cringing in the corner. Alphonse continued to protest anyway, louder at each finger. Raphael fucked him all the same.  
It didn’t hurt. Pain was expected in their kind, and Prince had guessed that was Alphonse’s fear. But even when the other Fauch hunched and came, the tears fell heavy down his cheeks.  
The Hund didn’t knot him. And he touched him less after that.

It had been the endings of spring when they’d gone to that ill omened battle. Prince had tried to mark the days since then with subtle etches in the bed boards, but there was no accounting for the unknown and unnumbered days he’d spent fevered and blind, and even now he missed count one day out of five.  
But the seasons moved without being counted. The days became thicker, humid with heat, dragonflies whipping across the pond. The cabin’s coverings and the dense pines around them warded off most of the sun, but not all of it.  
Prince and Alphonse were both panting like Hunds, limp on the bedsheets, aglitter with sweat. Raphael shook beads of damp off himself, groaned, and pulled to his feet.  
A moment later the two Fauch were slung over his shoulders, and a few minutes later...

A pond! Their kind were no lovers of water, but they brightened at the sight of it all the same, even Alphonse who had no hope left in him.   
Both squealed as they were abruptly tossed in, Raphael following after with a tremendous leap.  
And then they were all content to do nothing but bubble around the water for hours. Alphonse’d made an escape attempt every day since Raphael let him walk loose, undissuaded by the Hund’s grumbled growls of warning, but for now he was content to bask, close-eyed, half sprawled on a great stone protruding from the riverbank. Raphael did much the same, but Prince splashed around with great delight, swatting at minnows among the lilies.  
It was... strange, wasn’t it?  
He was the captive of an enemy. Even he knew that. And yet...  
Every facet of his life, from birth to war, had been typical of a Fauch. His father hadn’t been seen since he’d impregnated his mother. His mother had doted on him only until the next litter arrived. A fumbling grasp at survival. One paramour after another who insisted the rake of their spines was natural and good. Being drafted to the war...  
Prince could remember bright, among all that dark. But it had been scarce.   
Now, here, the opposite was true; aside from the occasional darkness of Alphonse’s suffering, everything was bright.  
Raphael had kept him safe and fed and warm. He had taught him to tend the gardens and lure fish, and in doing so even Prince had begun to feel his life had some worth to offer.   
And, above all, he’d made him feel...  
No, no! That last was going too far. Even if it felt nice, it was rape. Or at least coercion. It wasn’t...

Prince splashed a little too hard, a bluegill thrashing away in alarm.

The hours grew later, the sun no longer as forceful in its shine. Prince had long since ceased his playing and now lay half-dozing on the shore. Raphael stretched and pulled the rest of himself out of the water.  
Evidently, all their frolicking hadn’t been without casualties; Raphael frowned and picked at a tear on his shoulder, then cursed as that made the rip worse, sleeve slumping down and revealing a broad patch of skin.  
Prince was rigid and awake immediately. Alphonse snapped upright.  
Prince had seen much of Raphael’s body throughout the last months. Muscled, strong, canvassed with scars.  
He had never seen his shoulder. Always the man had kept his shirt draped on.   
Never had he seen that insignia.  
Raphael bore many tattoos. Most tribal and simple and holding no meaning for Prince.  
But this? A wolf that held the moon between its teeth. Every Fauch knew this.  
“Hellhound!” Alphonse hissed, his tail pluming with fear.  
An elite military order. The force that had brought Fauch civilization to its knees.  
Raphael’s face went dark. He scraped his blunt nails into the design and spat.  
“No.”  
Too late; Alphonse went bolting off into the undergrowth. Raphael’s face wrinkled. He went after him a moment later—caught him—and then all of them went back to the cabin.

Raphael leashed even Prince to the bed, this time. He left and came back with cool river stones to soothe their skin, but even as the night passed in comfort, their minds murmured with unease.  
Prince’s ear twitched.  
The typical sounds—crickets whizzing away in the distance, the occasional chuckle of some close night bird. It was still dark. What had woken him?  
Ah; Raphael was shuffling around through the cabin. Half-closed, Prince’s eyes followed him. The man was carrying a jug of spirit; almost empty, it seemed, Raphael tossing his head back and catching only drips.   
Prince gave up feigning sleep as the Hund moved closer. It was unusual for Raphael to drink so heavily and it was unusual for Prince to be restrained. The combination drooped his ears down fearfully against his skull. He’d lived this scenario before.  
But Raphael’s hands when they touched him were gentle, if a little clumsy with alcohol. A few kisses, strokes to his hair, Prince mewing softly. Raphael slid the Fauch’s pants down and bent him over the bed. Prince’s mews became louder and more steady.  
Alphonse awoke with a start and his attempt to pretend he hadn’t was laughable. The sight of the other two fucking like rabbits an inch from his face was a familiar one. Raphael had, on some such occasions, also tried to also encourage them to touch and kiss each OTHER, but Alphonse didn’t have the inclination for it and even Prince had no desire to ever take a Fauch prick again.   
Raphael had been clearly disappointed, but hadn’t pressed the point. Accordingly Alphonse squeezed his eyes shut and tried to sink back into sleep. This didn’t concern him.  
Prince arched and let out a long whine as Raphael thrust deep.  
No, no... never a Fauch lover, never again. This, THIS was...  
Raphael’s body strong and solid above him as he rutted. Prince could feel every etched abdominal, every iron bicep as the Hund moved in and over and around him, sweat slicked skin sealed together.   
To say nothing of his cock. Solid and strong, painless and rapturous, the swollen base of it knocking against his entry with every firm fuck. To his front, Raphael’s hand gave him occasional gentle strokes, callouses playing across his head, nimble and familiar enough by now to avoid his points. And...  
Prince looked up.   
Raphael’s face, too, was handsome and fierce. His snowy hair shone silver in what little moonlight drifted through the cabin’s slats, wild and long like the night.  
Prince had many joys, in this strange new life. Yet he wished for one more. For that face to smile at him, warm. To see, in those eyes...  
They weren’t even looking at him, right now. They were looking at Alphonse. Suddenly Raphael pulled loose, catching Alphonse and dragging him to his knees beside the bed. The Fauch screamed in objection. Raphael leaned him over the mattress and smoothly shifted from Prince’s hole to Alphonse’s.  
Prince trembled but didn’t move. Alphonse’s screams were of outrage and hate, not pain. And even if they had been, he... he couldn’t stop it...  
Prince bucked and cried out as Raphael was suddenly on HIM again. The pace was faster now than before, firm and raunchy, and in all honesty Prince would have preferred it if only—  
Raphael switched back to Alphonse, fucking wildly.  
If only—  
Back to him—  
If ONLY it was him—  
Emptiness again and cold. Prince’s fingers curled into the bedding as the tears came.  
If only he would let Alphonse go.  
Raphael did and came to him and came, groaning and rolling his thighs into Prince’s. The knot took, sealing them together, Raphael dropping exhausted to the floor.  
Alphonse remained quiet against the bed. Prince closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at him. But he heard him.  
“No, you’re not a hellhound.”  
A shaking hiss.  
“You’re worse.”  
Raphael stiffened slowly against him. It was hard to say, in exhaustion and in dark. But before Prince ran off into nauseous dreams, he almost thought he saw Raphael weeping.


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks passed.

Raphael did not touch them. Quite to the contrary, he gave them more freedom than ever before. Prince appreciated it. Alphonse squandered it. These times, for the first time, Raphael bothered barking explanations as he hauled the thistle-matted Fauch out of the brambles.  
WAR. Not safe. Alphonse didn’t care and hissed and scratched and spit, but still Raphael let him roam as much as he could. Alphonse’s escape attempts didn’t disappear, but they did diminish, the beautiful young blonde frumping around the cabin like a disgruntled wife.  
As for Prince... he spent his time exploring, taking in the simple pleasures, marveling at unknown flowers and transplanting discovered herbs to the garden.   
And longing.  
It was foolish, wasn’t it? Raphael had made it clear he only wanted him as much as he wanted any other beautiful Fauch. But still Prince missed his touch, and the dreams it had brought of something sweeter.  
So he was pleasantly startled when Raphael at last took him out alone, one glowing afternoon. Alphonse was locked hissing in the cabin—but at least had free reign of it—while Raphael gathered up a few branches and instructed Prince to follow.

They moved up the mountainside, further than Prince had gone with him before. Eventually they emerged on a bare scraggle of stone, overlooking the valley rolls beneath them.  
Raphael glared into the horizon and pointed.  
“See?”  
Yes, clouds and azure sky, and—oh. It wasn’t ALL cloud; a darker patch smudged up in the far off yonder, too low to be a storm.  
“War,” Raphael grunted, dropping to a sit.  
“Not safe. Few months more... not more. I pray.”  
He patted the rocks beside him, and Prince sat. The Hund then launched into a hands-on demonstration with the wood he’d brought, showing Prince how to shape the pieces into traps and snares, how to set them. Where to find good rocks to shape into knives. Which worked best. The language barrier was still evident, even if both had picked up scraps of each other along the way, but Raphael was patient and skillful and got the point across through showing.  
With that finished they placed and baited their work; ditches covered with loose leaf, rockfalls that crushed when something passed beneath, wiry young saplings that slammed javelins into the ground when disturbed. They began to head homeward then, and Prince thought that was the end of it, but Raphael abruptly dropped into a crouch and dragged him along.  
Prince didn’t need it pointed out; his bright eyes caught the rabbit all by themselves, sniffling through the clover.  
Raphael raised his ears and Prince followed. The way the wind moved across them... they were downwind. Raphael had taught him the importance of that early.  
The Hund looked at him and nodded.  
Prince stared. Raphael rolled his eyes and then slid the blonde toward their quarry.  
Oh! He’d never... Raphael had always done the hunting, but he could try. With what, though? They had no more spears and Raphael hadn’t given him a knife.  
Prince looked uncertainly back, questioning. Raphael showed his teeth and flexed his fingers before pointing one at Prince.  
Really?! Ha, well, he... he could try...!  
Prince slithered forward. The rabbit’s ears twitched at a fly, but not at him. Inch by supple inch, every muscle taut. He was three feet away under the shade of a sumac when the rabbit started.  
NOW!  
Prince lunged—the rabbit went bounding sideways—Prince rounded on it in one slick twist, and then his claws were on it, his TEETH were on it, fur and hot blood—  
It was over. A clean bite to the neck and dinner lay limp in his jaws. Prince dropped it, panting, and Raphael emerged approvingly from the thicket.  
“Good. You can hunt. Good to survive.”  
Yes, but... why?  
Prince had been meek his entire life, from kitten to captive. Yet sitting there with the life of his prey dribbling down his lips, he found the strength to ask.  
“Why?”  
Raphael’s ears shifted, as they did so often when he’d listened without intent to answer. Prince scowled.  
“WHY? Are you... setting us free?”  
“When war ends. Yes.”  
“I don’t WANT to be free!”  
The words startled himself; he clasped hands to his mouth. Now it was Raphael’s turn to look perplexed, head tilting.  
Oh, hell. He’d just killed a rabbit with his teeth, he could damn well say this.  
“Because I... I love you, Raphael!”  
The Hund’s ears shot upright like HE was a rabbit. Then he laughed, darkly, and looked down.  
“No. You are...”  
“I’m not crazy! I...”  
I’ve never known anyone as kind as you. Could he say that? What the man had done to Alphonse... yet his feelings remained unchanged. He’d known men who hurt others his entire life. Raphael was the only one who’d ever thought to change.  
“I... I love you, Raphael. Because you’re kind, even if you make mistakes. You take care of me... you’re helping me survive... you teach me, you protect me. You look at me, and... your eyes are gentle. I, I want to see that from you, forever!”  
Raphael’s ears folded softly back against his skull.  
He turned and—began to stumble away. Prince leapt up and after him, rabbit abandoned behind. He hit his fist into the man’s broad back.  
“LOOK at me!”  
“Prince...”  
“C-Can’t you say anything, you stupid Hund? Even you... even you can t-talk, can’t you?! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”  
“Prince.”  
Raphael did turn now, looking wearily down.  
“I am... a monster.”  
“I don’t care! I want you!”  
“Prince—“  
The Fauch threw himself forward, into a deep kiss. Raphael stiffened and then went soft.  
“Prince...”  
“K-Kiss me back.”  
And he did. Gently. His teeth played across the blonde’s lip, sharing the taste of blood. Prince seemed to remember it only then, squeaking and pulling back to wipe furiously at his mouth.  
“Oh n-no, the rabbit—“  
He turned around and shrieked; he could practically see the fox winking at him before it zipped away with their meal.  
“No! Oh no, the—“  
“Prince.”  
Raphael’s voice, husky in his ear.  
“Look at me.”  
And Prince did. His eyes went wide as the man leaned in and kissed him.  
Their hands were on each other and their clothes were on the forest floor. Raphael picked him up—with delicacy, this time, not like a sack of vegetables—and settled him down upon cushioning moss. The earthy scent of wood and man filled Prince’s nostrils as Raphael bent over him.  
They kissed and rubbed together a minute more before Prince wiggled in protest. Raphael pulled back to let him move, and Prince went straight for his cock.  
Ah, this smelled best of all. Thick with musk. Prince savored the aroma before his tongue flicked across heated skin, rolling against Raphael’s knot as the man groaned. Prince mouthed there a moment longer before dropping to the man’s sacs, sucking strongly as Raphael yelped in surprise.  
They were large, and rolled nicely along his tongue... Prince took them both in and tugged and teethed lightly as Raphael growled approval.  
Then the man coaxed HIM back. Prince immediately rolled to his back and lifted his legs. But rather than positioning himself over him, Raphael leaned down between his legs to—  
Prince squeaked and caught the man’s head in his hands.  
“You c-can’t! I’ll h-hurt you.”  
Raphael clucked in annoyance, sitting back. Then started eagerly, ripping up a handful of moss and shoving it in his mouth before—  
Ah! Ah! Never—never had he even dreamed—  
It was hot and wet and soft. Prince mewed and his hips bucked as Raphael sucked him. So soft, so soft. It was like fucking a cloud... ah—AHH—  
Prince came hard, squirting milk in the Hund’s mouth. Raphael let him finish and then let him recover, all while sucking out what white he could from the clumps of accommodating moss.  
When Prince had regained his breath, he lifted his legs again, trembling. Raphael pressed over him, breathing hard.  
“Prince...”  
“R-Raphael.”  
The man slid in. They’d made love enough times for Prince to bear it. The Fauch cried out softly, thighs twitching as Raphael began a gentle pace. This felt... this felt...  
They had had sex so many times before, but it had never felt like this.  
Raphael’s fingers intertwined with his. They kissed.  
“Prince...”  
“Raphael...”  
“I love you.”  
“I love you, t-too.”  
They went to paradise together, but when they came back Prince decided this was paradise, too. They lay nestled together, Raphael warm and firm inside, locking them together even as their souls did that all on their own.  
Prince had been wrong.  
This place had not been paradise.  
Until now.

Prince woke in his lover’s arms to dappled morning sun, and the afterglow of that moment never faded.  
Raphael’s attention was now only custodial towards Alphonse. It was Prince his eyes sought, Prince’s hand he held, Prince he laughed with and nuzzled and carried contently around in his arms. It was Prince he loved, and Prince alone.  
The everyday aspects of life were new and warm in this light, but there were fundamental improvements, too. Raphael returned one day from his foraging with a handful of Fauch books, both Prince and Alphonse crowding around them bright-eyed.  
“War quieter,” Raphael explained, and they were able to take advantage of that. New things emerged from the ashes of battle; clothes, furniture, puzzles, bottled spices and jams. Goods once common become exotic. While all were enjoyed, the books had an extra benefit; Prince used them to teach Raphael his language. Raphael proved as good a student as a teacher, and with newfound understanding he had a better grasp of what his Fauch desired and did his best to bring it to them.  
Hmm... no. Not his Fauch. They were free, if not free to go, not yet. Even Alphonse felt the tonal shift. He was more than skeptical when Prince explained Raphael’s intentions, but he was less tense around the Hund all the same. Raphael no longer touched him, and in fact fashioned a secondary bed for him. It was small but ample for Alphonse’s size, and the little Fauch took to it immediately. This was largely to get away from Raphael’s stinking self, but it had its own satisfaction, too. Raphael and Prince came back from one late night rendezvous to hear him purring in his sleep, comfortably cocooned in furs upon his bed.  
Hunting lessons continued. Prince could now reliably catch rabbit, duck, and pheasant. Deer were a different matter; too big for claws and teeth, Raphael was trying to teach Prince to use a bow, but it was decidedly NOT an affinity of his. No matter; Raphael handled the big game and Prince minded the gardens.  
Even Alphonse was taught what Raphael could, largely through Prince as proxy. Giving him a chance at a knife proved rather... complicated, but after the first half hearted murder attempt he behaved well enough. The mood had changed. Alphonse continued to express complete unconfidence in Raphael’s letting them go, but despite his words his actions to learn survival were steadfast and driven.  
They were in the heart of summer, now. Their days and their own hearts were full. Prince could imagine no better world.

Until, inexorably, the old world found them.


	5. Chapter 5

It was an uncomfortably humid day.

They’d seen the storm clouds festering off in the west from the peaks last night, and by morning they were upon them. There was no question of rain coming; it was simply a matter of when. Like an ill mood the sky simply blackened above them, an occasional thunder burst still too far to be heard sending bright arcs through the dark.  
They’d had good fortune the day before; Raphael had taken a buck and they’d found and transplanted several blackberry brambles heavy with fruit. With the meat salted and the fruit preserved they’d been free to take a lazy day, and Prince and Alphonse were doing exactly that. Pity the weather hadn’t been better for it, but such was nature.  
Prince lay on the yard chair they’d crafted, flipping through an adventure novel with half-closed eyes. Alphonse was inside trying to create watercolor paint.  
Raphael, always restless, had gone off to forage. But it seemed even he had had enough; Prince looked up, smiling, as the man came stumbling out of the brush.  
No.  
Not Raphael. Black and wild hair. An impossibly massive Hund. His eyes went wide with predatory delight at the sight of FAUCH.  
Fear clogged Prince’s throat and for a moment he felt like the rabbit he’d hunted.  
But Raphael had taught him he was more than prey.  
A piercing scream—an ALARM, sending Alphonse jolting out of the cabin. He also froze at the sight of the Hund, but not for long.  
He and Prince were Fauch, and that counted for something. Like wind they were gone, scattering up the treetops and running, arching through the overgrowth. Prince did not dare call out for Raphael again. He prayed his one shout had been enough.  
They were minutes into their flight when the rain came. Copious, pouring. Prince had caught only brief glimpses of Alphonse before and now he was lost entirely to a veil of water and leaf. He was on his own.  
Further and further he scrambled until, finding a particularly grand oak, he squirreled up into its farthest reaches. Hunds were not good climbers. And hopefully the torrent would hide him.  
Prince stayed there for what seemed a lifetime. Every heartbeat measured out an hour. And still nothing, silence save the rain. No howl of Hund, good or bad, and no sound of Alphonse either.  
Was he safe? Was Raphael...  
How silly to fear for Raphael’s safety. But this new Hund had been larger and fiercer than even him.  
Prince clung there, and was afraid.

A far rumble of thunder. The further darkening of the sky told him some time had passed. But where was safe? Not back at the cabin, surely. But what if Raphael had driven off the other Hund and was looking for him? Or what if he’d defeated him but been hurt? What if, what if, what if—  
A scream ripped through the torrent. Prince jolted five limbs further up before forcing himself to go down.  
That was Alphonse’s scream. And he couldn’t just... but what could he do?  
Prince clung miserably tighter to the branches.  
He didn’t know what he could do. But he knew he couldn’t do nothing.  
The Fauch crept closer and closer to the terrible sound, tree by tree, inch by inch, until he saw the scene from through the rain. The massive new Hund raping Alphonse against a tree, the smaller male wailing at every bounce.  
The monster had already left gouges down his shoulder. How much longer til he ate him, too?  
It took every piece of will Prince had in his body to snap a stick loose and hurl it at the beast.  
The behemoth blinked and turned towards him. Prince felt cold.  
The man WINKED.  
“Soon.”  
And then he went back to fucking Alphonse with completely undaunted fervor.  
Prince shuddered. He couldn’t stop this. He had to go find Raphael.  
But would any of Alphonse be left by then?  
Alphonse had never been kind to him. If anything he had been the opposite. Why should he die for him?  
Prince was nauseous with self revulsion. Yet his brain whispered temptations and the desire to live.  
But it hadn’t been so very long ago when others had saved him. The Fauch who had rescued him on the battlefield. Raphael who had nursed him from death.

If he ran now, he did not deserve the life they had given him.

Prince leapt to the tree above the two. A moment of searching to find what he needed. The Hund was hunched over Alphonse, a broad target and a broad shield.  
Prince kicked at the dying branch. A few splinters groaned loose.  
The Hund didn’t look up. Prince kicked again. And again and again and again—  
The limb drooped free of its tree and smashed a good hundred pounds of weight into the Hund’s fat head.  
The giant went down. Prince’s heart leapt with joy when Alphonse wobbled out from beneath him and, after a few unsteady steps, launched into a run. Prince turned to do the same himself.  
The crack of a gun. Prince screamed as the branch he was holding gave way, just barely catching on to another.  
The Hund was rising up, still very much alive, bloody and angry and pointing a gun.  
Prince dodged another shot and bolted, panic stricken, into the wet woods. He could hear the Hund roaring behind him.

Until he couldn’t.

Only the sound of rain once more.  
Prince’s ears rose to their full height, swiveling. There was nothing. He had lost him—  
Another gunshot, an inch above his head. Prince screamed and once more fled.  
As he turned to reach the next tree he caught the briefest glimpse of the Hund. He didn’t look angry anymore.  
He was smiling.

Prince was again a rabbit.  
The man forced his every turn. The only way forward was the one chosen for him, and this, inevitably, led to the raw edge of a cliff. Prince skittered down the last tree just before a shot ripped through it. The Hund was behind, and the void was ahead.  
This hunt was over.  
The man gave him a broad grin. Prince whimpered and sunk as far back on solid ground as he could. In a moment the Hund was over him, massive. His exposed cock was engorged and throbbing.  
“Kitty, eh...”  
The horror knelt down, seizing him by the hair and drawing him close to whisper confidentially in his ear.  
“I will kill you. But little pain, big pain... you choose. Hm?”  
Prince was thrust down, between the Hund’s legs. The stench was overpowering.  
The man’s shaft glistened red. Prince moaned.  
The Hund gave him an affectionately firm slap to the cheek.  
“Little pain or big pain. You understand, yah?”  
Prince did. He opened his mouth and began to suck.  
With a happy grunt the Hund immediately forced the entirety of his manhood in. Prince coughed but managed.  
But then the man began to press FURTHER.  
Prince had sucked at the beginnings of Raphael’s knot before, but never forced, and he’d never managed all the way. His throat didn’t seem CAPABLE of all the way. But the man gripped his head firmly and continued to push and inch by inch it went until somehow he’d taken it all, Prince gurgling, tears leaping to his eyes. He couldn’t breathe.  
The man moaned in pleasure at his pain and began to thrust. Prince caught half snatches of breath between. Thick with stink and spit and the first dribbles of cum.  
He could feel every pulse of the man’s veins. He was both thicker and longer than Raphael, and far less beautiful. Saliva with nowhere else to go made sticky beads between his lips and every inch of the man’s shaft.  
Prince forced his clouding mind to keep functioning. When the man came, maybe he’d be dazed long enough for him to run. Somewhere—anywhere—  
The Hund groaned and exploded and Prince gulped as swift as he could and still drowned beneath the torrent. Hot and bitter and thick and vile clogging every inch of his throat.  
And now was his chance to—  
He pulled back and went nowhere. Slowly, inevitably, the man’s knot swelled within his throat.  
The Hund sighed in contentment as the Fauch struggled teary-eyed upon his cock. He patted him absently with a hand.  
“Now now, patient, patient.”  
He couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he COULDN’T BREATHE—  
He couldn’t even bite. His jaws were spread so wide and the man’s shaft was so stiff that he could apply no pressure.  
This was it. This was...  
"Good kitty," the man sighed, and everything went dark.

“Wake up, wake up!”  
More friendly slaps upon his face. Prince’s eyes snapped open—he spasmed—doubled over and released a river of white on the cliffside. AIR. He gasped and gasped for it.  
The man picked him up by the collar, single-handed, and pressed him back against a tree. Without much fanfare a finger as large as a typical Fauch’s cock was slid inside him.  
Prince warbled. The man cooed and swirled about inside him. He withdrew only to offer the finger to Prince’s mouth.  
Prince sucked. The finger returned inside him.  
Raphael will come, some small part of his soul pleaded. But how would the man track him through the rain that erased scent and sign? Alphonse knew where to find him, but this was his chance to escape. He wasn’t coming back.  
The tears dripped down his face along the rain.  
The man withdrew his finger again and, rather than bothering with another, immediately presented his cock. Prince looked down. The man was a giant and he was frightened. There would be pain.  
Not that pain was new to him. He had known it many times before, with many Fauch. There were sheaths that would have concealed their spines while they thrust inside him, but they had always whispered it was the more natural way, the more pleasurable way. He had always let them.  
This was his place, after all. The whore son of a whore.  
All he’d done his entire life was run away. Run away from feeling, run away from thinking, run away from himself. Fitting, then, that the end came when he couldn’t run any more.  
Had he really thought a weak, insignificant, talentless coward like himself deserved peace?  
Deserved Ra—  
The man thrust in. Prince screamed. Instantly he was pumping, pumping, pumping, up to the hilt, full knot, insatiable. Prince could feel the bulge that horror made along his belly.  
“—Ufh.”  
The Hund stopped. Prince trembled and opened his eyes. The man was pretend-frowning down at Prince’s own dick, where limp spines had left the smallest scratch along the Hund’s abdomen.  
The giant reached forward, ripped a swathe of fabric from Prince’s shirt, and bundled it around his flaccid member.  
“No pricking by your prick!”  
A cheery wink and he was being raped again. It all felt so familiar.  
Hot pain began to go numb.

When the man finished and withdrew Prince slumped down the tree rather than run. The Hund foisted him up again, turned him over, and began with renewed vigor.  
Prince could feel he was bleeding. He felt it even more when the Hund ran cruel claws along his back to get him to cry out.

_Kill me._

Distant memories. Disowned by his mother, homeless, friendless, standing on a bridge.

Looking at bedsheets after another night of satisfying his pimp. Imagining a rope.

Hearing tales of what the Hund did to their prey and thinking of the newly issued gun beside his bed.

Why had he lived? Why had others saved him?

Memories of people holding hands. Of laughter. Of a light that never reached him.

Had he really thought that love would find him?

He looked up dimly at the sound of a snarl.

Raphael had found him.


	6. Chapter 6

Raphael had found him. 

Raphael had come _for him._

Prince's eyes slipped back into focus.  
Alphonse was behind him—Alphonse was the reason he had found him. He hadn’t run after all.

The Hund didn’t even stop thrusting, although his pace grew more languid. He turned to Raphael and barked something.  
Raphael answered with a strange calm, ears only partly folded back.  
Much of their language was still lost on him, but Prince thought he recognized mine, please.  
The larger Hund laughed.  
“Sorry, sorry!”  
He withdrew and let Prince drop to the ground. Raphael’s muscles twitched ever so slightly.  
Still he didn’t attack. And the newcomer, although friendly in posture, kept his hand by his gun.  
“Two Fauch? Nice, nice!”  
“Yes.”  
Alphonse looked between the two with increased unease. Prince had eyes only for Raphael.  
Apparently so did the new Hund. His eyes widened.  
“Hellhound! Hey hey!”  
The giant threw up his sleeve and revealed a tattoo to match Raphael’s. His tail wagged.  
“Older, eh? Why haven’t I met you?”  
“Retired,” Raphael said, almost dismissively.  
“What, no more hunger?”  
“...Different hunger.”  
The dark haired Hund looked at the two Fauch and laughed.  
“Yes, I see! Sorry for, ah...”  
“Didn’t know, mm.”  
“Yah. Sorry. Is problem?”  
“Less now. Still breathing.”  
“Ha! Good thing!”  
Alphonse turned to run and Raphael caught him by the collar.  
“Come to my home?” Raphael offered, ignoring the yowls of his captive.  
“Oooh. Yah!”  
The beast threw Prince carelessly over his shoulder, grinning, and followed as Raphael moved into the woods.  
Prince only watched.  
He understood with his heart.

“How is war?”  
“Ehhh, well! See...”  
The two launched into a conversation in their own tongue, speaking louder over Alphonse’s shouts. The terrain around them began to grow more familiar.  
Our hunting grounds, Prince realized, and then it clicked.  
Raphael stepped carefully, subtly, around a clump of clover. The other Hund barged right through it.  
The snare whipped upwards around his ankle, the man cursing, ripped up into the air.  
Both Prince AND THE GUN dropped to the ground.  
Raphael released Alphonse and spun for the weapon. The other Hund snarled and with a sheer of his claws was free and falling.  
He met Raphael just as the other reached for the gun.  
Bellows—struggles—the rifle kicked out of both their ranges, INTO ANOTHER SNARE, zipped upwards like bait on a hook. Raphael swore and put his teeth into the bastard’s neck. The man howled and punched into his skull.  
Alphonse ran without looking back. Prince didn’t. He danced along the edges, watching.  
Raphael was skilled, more skilled, but the man was larger. Brute force was beginning to overcome the unarmed dispute. Raphael spat blood and lost his hold and the larger Hund rounded on him, kicking his ribs before dropping on him like a beast.  
“Run, Prince!” Raphael bellowed, trying frantically to regain his footing.

And he should have run. He wanted to run. That’s what scared little Fauch did, after all. Run like rabbits.

But Raphael had taught him he was not the rabbit.  
He was the hunter.

Eyes scanned the perimeter. A fallen branch of the right tree and size to make a spear. No time to sharpen the end, but the natural blade of the end would work well enough.  
Every fiber of every muscle he’d built tending the gardens and climbing and hunting went into that rush, and he drove the javelin five inches deep into the bastard’s ribs. The man roared—those wild eyes flashed towards him—but he had his hands around Raphael’s throat and did not let loose. He was going to kill Raphael, and then he was going to kill him.

Raphael and him alone in a field. The man had allowed him neither spear nor knife.  
You have your own weapons, he had taught him.

Prince leapt, and his teeth sunk into the Hund’s artery. The man bellowed and at last released Raphael to reach for him.  
He never reached him. Raphael’s teeth had reached him first.  
Two staggered breaths, and then it was over, the giant slumping to the side as crimson pooled around his twice-ruined throat.

Raphael took Prince into his arms and Prince took Raphael into his and all the world was still.

It had been a week since they’d been attacked.  
Raphael had scoured the area—heavily, and often—and found nothing. Alphonse, aggrieved but not stupid, had remained safely at the cabin. A newly carved horn—not exactly sonorous, but certainly loud enough to carry through the woods—would alert Raphael of threat.  
There was none. Peace had returned to the woods.

And to elsewhere, as well.

Raphael returned from a last exploration with news. Good news, he promised, but one he didn’t hurry to share. Tomorrow, he insisted.  
It wasn’t until they’d eaten rabbit stew and fresh bread at noon the next day that Raphael spoke. His Fauch was improving, but not perfect; he had Prince translate the nuances.  
The war was over. The end had come from both ends. A new race of Fauch from the south—larger, stronger, more sociable—had come to the aid of their smaller brethren. Wild-haired, proud, and BIGGER THAN HUND, Raphael had said; Prince wasn't sure whether that or the notion of Fauch getting along was harder to believe. As for the Hund; word of soldier-committed atrocities had led to pressure to stop the war in the north, and their rulers had at last brought them to heel. A few rogues remained, the man they'd fought one such monster, but the efforts of the new Fauch and the new more diplomatic Hund were doing well at rooting them out.  
Both sides had thus reached truce. It was an uneasy one, but there was hope that it would be lasting.  
“Which means...” Prince translated, softly. Raphael stood wordlessly and withdrew something from a cabinet. A knapsack filled with food and gourds of water, fishing equipment, knives, rope, tinder—  
“No apology... will, forgive, my sin,” Raphael said, heavily.  
“But, if need help... help will be here.”  
Wordlessly, Alphonse stood and took the bundle. He walked out the door without looking back.  
But did REACH back, somehow managing to hoist up his bed with a grunt and a hiss, out the door and with him. And that really was the end of it.  
Raphael looked quietly at the door for a moment, then reached beneath the cabinet once more.  
He withdrew another pack, identical, and offered it to Prince.

Prince looked down. Then up.  
He slid the pouch back across the table. Raphael grunted in irritation.  
“You must go. Back to your people.”  
“I want to stay with you.”  
“No.”  
“Why?”  
“Because—BECAUSE—“  
Raphael looked almost angry, but then rage became shame. He looked away.  
“I... hurt you.”  
“Raphael.”  
“I... raped—“  
“Raphael.”  
Small hands forced Raphael to look at him. Prince smiled even as the tears came.  
“If you still feel bad, after everything, then I guess you’ll just have to keep making up for it.”  
“Prince...” Raphael’s eyes widened. Prince stroked his cheek.  
“I love you.”  
It was hard to be sure, through his muddled vision, but Prince thought Raphael’s own eyes had filled with mist.  
“I love you.”  
He drew the blonde close, safe and warm, and cradled his head against his neck.  
“I will make your life happy.”  
“You already did.”  
“Then, more, more happy!”  
Prince laughed, drawing up, kissing his forehead.  
“Promise?”  
“I promise.”  
And he did.


End file.
